Now that Ramadan is over, I briefly reflect on what I experienced. The most vivid impression I have this year is of the juxtaposition of generosity and beggary during the month of Ramadan.
People were even more willing to assist me as a foreigner, even when I did not ask for it. Most of the time I found this charming, occasionally I found it aggravating. “Ya 3m, ana ma talubtsh min’ak ei haga!” (“Yeah Uncle, I did not ask anything from you!”) I found myself wanting to say. “Ana 3arafa. Ana sakana hena.” (“I know. I live here.”) I would say at times in exacerbation.
Most of the time, though, peoples’ extended generosity was welcomed and warmly appreciated. And at times it was sorely needed. The public transit system seemed to change overnight with the start of Ramadan. One night I left downtown late, thinking it would be no problem getting home, only to discover that I was relying on local residents to get home because the way back was surprisingly unclear!
The month of Ramadan is a month of giving. And buying. On the day of Eid the children and teenagers take over the streets and the metro. They play outside in their new clothes, with their new toys. As a sister of a colleague of mine told me on Eid, when I asked her how people felt on Eid as we were heading to her brother’s place, children are happy because they are given new clothes and new toys, and adults are unhappy because they have to buy them. Indeed, Eid is for the young.
Of course as someone who comes from a tradition of commercialized Christmas, I understand well the stress of gift-giving during holiday times.
More than that, with commercialized Eid comes the Wretched of the Earth seeking out a meagre existence. Particularly during the last week of Ramadan, when scores of people went out shopping for Eid gifts, scores of beggars came out onto the streets. Or at least that is how it felt. I don’t think I saw as many beggars during Ramadan as I had seen the entire past year. And so many children.
In my daily routine I rarely see street children or children begging, so when I went to Doqqi, a fairly well-off neighborhood of downtown Cairo, during Ramadan and saw so many street children I was reminded that, yes, according to statistics there are over 1 million street children in Cairo alone. And just the week before, I had found myself trying to convince an Egyptian friend of mine that actually there aren’t that many street children in Egypt. I mean, compared to India or Brazil or war-torn countries. Really, everything is relative. Huh? Say that again, Marion?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Imperial Haze, Part II
In his famous poem Ozymandias, Percy Shelley only got it partly right:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Shelley shows us the foolishness of man, so limited and so impotent compared to the boundlessness of the sands. So foolishly proud is the emperor. Indeed, just as surely as our own selves will slip away with time will even the mightiest of empires decay.
And what remains is the beauty of the sculptor; the hands that create. The creation outlives the man. The life that remains is in the art.
And oh how commanding is that which remains! Empires may surely fall but not without effect. Their restored remains (and all that is left behind ‘for posterity’s sake’) tell powerful narratives, woo audiences with their beauty and become the centerpieces of made-up histories. The victors may be in a colossal wreck but do not be deceived, dear Shelley, as they continue to write history and wield marked power in our contemporary times.
Of course it is the reconstruction of these remains in roughly the past century and a half, coupled with the written texts left behind by the victors, that has had such an influence on our contemporary reading of the past. The reconstruction and the interpretation have been deeply embedded in processes of memory creation, as the British empire and then new nation states actively tried to create their histories.
I am often reminded of this living in the ‘Land of the Pharaohs’. That is Pharaohs with a capital “P” no less. The imperial time of the Pharaohs has perhaps received unprecedented reconstruction efforts. Even an entire discipline and many sub-disciplines have been created to study this time. An entire nation was granted partial independence (Egypt in the 1920s) in part because of its remains. Millions of people make a living off of its display. An entire national economy is based on the selling of the Pharaonic past.
More than that, people take the ancient past of this place to be the past of the Pharaohs. How often the Pharaohs are conflated with “the ancient Egyptians” is mind boggling. We are bedazzled by the remains: gold, jewelry by the dozen, aesthetic catacombs, hidden chambers. They capture the modern imagination: How could they? How did they? What beauty!
As if all the peoples of this region during this vast time frame had such an elaborate burial, their catacombs stuffed with gold and jewelry and animal protectors!
How frequently I have heard the human past equated with the constructed Pharaonic one is even more disturbing. Such fetishization of the remains leaves the bedazzled in a stupor. The mark of the slave and serving classes is masked by the beauty of the art that remains.
I am perhaps more reminded of the decadence of the ruling classes and the their history in the making when I leave or come back to my home in Cairo. Most ways pass by the Citadel with the Mohamed Ali Mosque jutting out into the skyline. When I am making my long way home, I get dropped off in a dust and smoke filled field of cement. Its night and its dark. I walk along beside an overpass and next to a wall (probably from the same period as the mosque), making my way to the transportation hub in Sayeda Aisha to catch my next micro-bus. And there above me, on top of the hill, shining above like a full moon, is the lit Mohamed Ali Mosque. It takes my breath away almost every time. Amidst such grime, such coldness, there is this stunning beauty lighting up the sky.
Cough.
Well, that is precisely what Mohamed Ali was aiming for. He didn’t create the Mosque for God and then name it after himself. He was the man who ripped thousands of farmers from their land, enslaved them in his army and then denied them a proper burial; forced thousands of other farmers to cultivate cotton; gave land and favors to his political allies; and the list of atrocities under his reign goes on. He was the man who reaped injustice in this land – and as the historian Khaled Fahmy argues, for the sake of him and his family.
But in that haze of nation building and national history creation, Mohamed Ali became the founder of modern Egypt (which had something to do with the mosque and other remains left behind). And now the grand Mosque is a major destination in Cairo, not just for tourists but for school children. It is with awe that they look upon “his creation” and in that awe the history is told as if he himself was telling it.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Shelley shows us the foolishness of man, so limited and so impotent compared to the boundlessness of the sands. So foolishly proud is the emperor. Indeed, just as surely as our own selves will slip away with time will even the mightiest of empires decay.
And what remains is the beauty of the sculptor; the hands that create. The creation outlives the man. The life that remains is in the art.
And oh how commanding is that which remains! Empires may surely fall but not without effect. Their restored remains (and all that is left behind ‘for posterity’s sake’) tell powerful narratives, woo audiences with their beauty and become the centerpieces of made-up histories. The victors may be in a colossal wreck but do not be deceived, dear Shelley, as they continue to write history and wield marked power in our contemporary times.
Of course it is the reconstruction of these remains in roughly the past century and a half, coupled with the written texts left behind by the victors, that has had such an influence on our contemporary reading of the past. The reconstruction and the interpretation have been deeply embedded in processes of memory creation, as the British empire and then new nation states actively tried to create their histories.
I am often reminded of this living in the ‘Land of the Pharaohs’. That is Pharaohs with a capital “P” no less. The imperial time of the Pharaohs has perhaps received unprecedented reconstruction efforts. Even an entire discipline and many sub-disciplines have been created to study this time. An entire nation was granted partial independence (Egypt in the 1920s) in part because of its remains. Millions of people make a living off of its display. An entire national economy is based on the selling of the Pharaonic past.
More than that, people take the ancient past of this place to be the past of the Pharaohs. How often the Pharaohs are conflated with “the ancient Egyptians” is mind boggling. We are bedazzled by the remains: gold, jewelry by the dozen, aesthetic catacombs, hidden chambers. They capture the modern imagination: How could they? How did they? What beauty!
As if all the peoples of this region during this vast time frame had such an elaborate burial, their catacombs stuffed with gold and jewelry and animal protectors!
How frequently I have heard the human past equated with the constructed Pharaonic one is even more disturbing. Such fetishization of the remains leaves the bedazzled in a stupor. The mark of the slave and serving classes is masked by the beauty of the art that remains.
I am perhaps more reminded of the decadence of the ruling classes and the their history in the making when I leave or come back to my home in Cairo. Most ways pass by the Citadel with the Mohamed Ali Mosque jutting out into the skyline. When I am making my long way home, I get dropped off in a dust and smoke filled field of cement. Its night and its dark. I walk along beside an overpass and next to a wall (probably from the same period as the mosque), making my way to the transportation hub in Sayeda Aisha to catch my next micro-bus. And there above me, on top of the hill, shining above like a full moon, is the lit Mohamed Ali Mosque. It takes my breath away almost every time. Amidst such grime, such coldness, there is this stunning beauty lighting up the sky.
Cough.
Well, that is precisely what Mohamed Ali was aiming for. He didn’t create the Mosque for God and then name it after himself. He was the man who ripped thousands of farmers from their land, enslaved them in his army and then denied them a proper burial; forced thousands of other farmers to cultivate cotton; gave land and favors to his political allies; and the list of atrocities under his reign goes on. He was the man who reaped injustice in this land – and as the historian Khaled Fahmy argues, for the sake of him and his family.
But in that haze of nation building and national history creation, Mohamed Ali became the founder of modern Egypt (which had something to do with the mosque and other remains left behind). And now the grand Mosque is a major destination in Cairo, not just for tourists but for school children. It is with awe that they look upon “his creation” and in that awe the history is told as if he himself was telling it.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Imperial Gaze
“As for the rest of the category which cultivated
no sciences, they are more like animals than human beings.
Those of them who live deep in the north – between the
end of the seven climates and the confines of the habitable
world – have been so affected by the extreme distance
from the sun from the Zenith above their hands, resulting
in cold climate and thick atmosphere, that their temperaments
have become chilly and their humors rude. Consequently their
bodies are huge, their color is pale and their hair long.
For the same reason they lack keenness in intelligence and
perspicacity, are characterized by ignorance and stupidity.
Folly and blindness prevail among them as among Slavs, Bulgars,
and other neighboring peoples.”
From an 11th century Arab writer, writing at the height of the Muslim Empire, gazing down upon those other peoples in the North. That is, in present-day Northern Europe.
(Said al-Andalusi, Kitab Tabaqat al-Uman, taken from Szyliowicz’s 1973 Education and modernization in the Middle East)
A thousand years earlier, in present-day Britain, the Roman Pro-Council Agricola looks upon a map of the Empire’s newly conquered (and yet to be conquered) northern territories with one of his advisors. Agricola points to the map in the direction of the island of Ireland.
Agricola: Do we occupy it?
His advisor: No, we don’t. It is not worth occupying. The people are primitive. There are marshlands. We sent people to scout it out. Really, it is not worth occupying.
Agricola: I think this is where you are wrong, because an unoccupied land gives ideas to people who live in occupied lands.
(Tacitus’s account from his biography of Agricola, taken from Tariq Ali’s 2003 “War, Empire and Resistance” lecture at UC Berkeley, available in full at google video)
As Tariq Ali reminds us, up until the 18th century most wars were fought by empires or between empires. Empires self-sustain and self-destruct themselves, conquering newer lands to, as Agricola would put it, avoid giving ideas to those already occupied.
From the seat of Empire one gazes upon the others with feelings of superiority, and from the periphery intense rivalries wage between newly demarcated groups of conquered peoples.
Empires make wars, conquer lands and are governed by intense processes of othering. The others, even the most ‘backward’ of the lot, are forced within to play a role in a hierarchical system from center to periphery.
The intense hierarchies of our time are indeed not timeless, even though they may feel so. They are certainly not part of some amorphous “human nature.” Even if, as I heard argued recently, the Pharaoh’s show us a preferential system for lighter-skinned females! More than anything, the racism and marked inequalities of our times reflect the sickness and self-destructiveness of empire building.
no sciences, they are more like animals than human beings.
Those of them who live deep in the north – between the
end of the seven climates and the confines of the habitable
world – have been so affected by the extreme distance
from the sun from the Zenith above their hands, resulting
in cold climate and thick atmosphere, that their temperaments
have become chilly and their humors rude. Consequently their
bodies are huge, their color is pale and their hair long.
For the same reason they lack keenness in intelligence and
perspicacity, are characterized by ignorance and stupidity.
Folly and blindness prevail among them as among Slavs, Bulgars,
and other neighboring peoples.”
From an 11th century Arab writer, writing at the height of the Muslim Empire, gazing down upon those other peoples in the North. That is, in present-day Northern Europe.
(Said al-Andalusi, Kitab Tabaqat al-Uman, taken from Szyliowicz’s 1973 Education and modernization in the Middle East)
A thousand years earlier, in present-day Britain, the Roman Pro-Council Agricola looks upon a map of the Empire’s newly conquered (and yet to be conquered) northern territories with one of his advisors. Agricola points to the map in the direction of the island of Ireland.
Agricola: Do we occupy it?
His advisor: No, we don’t. It is not worth occupying. The people are primitive. There are marshlands. We sent people to scout it out. Really, it is not worth occupying.
Agricola: I think this is where you are wrong, because an unoccupied land gives ideas to people who live in occupied lands.
(Tacitus’s account from his biography of Agricola, taken from Tariq Ali’s 2003 “War, Empire and Resistance” lecture at UC Berkeley, available in full at google video)
As Tariq Ali reminds us, up until the 18th century most wars were fought by empires or between empires. Empires self-sustain and self-destruct themselves, conquering newer lands to, as Agricola would put it, avoid giving ideas to those already occupied.
From the seat of Empire one gazes upon the others with feelings of superiority, and from the periphery intense rivalries wage between newly demarcated groups of conquered peoples.
Empires make wars, conquer lands and are governed by intense processes of othering. The others, even the most ‘backward’ of the lot, are forced within to play a role in a hierarchical system from center to periphery.
The intense hierarchies of our time are indeed not timeless, even though they may feel so. They are certainly not part of some amorphous “human nature.” Even if, as I heard argued recently, the Pharaoh’s show us a preferential system for lighter-skinned females! More than anything, the racism and marked inequalities of our times reflect the sickness and self-destructiveness of empire building.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Al Khouf
This is a Moroccan hip hop song about fear. Released in 2006. Brilliant. Bigg, the singer, has since been playing songs about gang rivalries and showing videos of him driving around in fancy cars. But this song still shows what hip hop can offer. Thanks to my husband for the translation :)
FEAR Refrain: Noooo more FEAR Your heads up free Moroccans and say no more fear!
Throw your hands up those who have no fear in their hearts!
I’m afraid of the cop, I’m afraid of the municipality and I’m afraid of those who have money.
You are afraid of everything but you have no fear from Allah.
Bigg:
There is someone who fears a cop.
There is someone who is afraid of the municipality.
There is someone who fears “lamqdam” (assistant of the local governor).
And there is someone who has immunity.
There are those among you who are afraid of me.
There are those among you who are afraid about me.
There are those who were arrested unjustly.
There are those who bombed themselves.
There are those who represent a party.
There are those represent themselves.
There are those who just act in front of the people.
There are those who clean their molars (refers to rich people who clean their teeth after having a big a meal).
There are those who have stolen the money of remote towns.
There are those who denied that they have robbed public money.
There are those who curse girls in their CDs, and forgot that they themselves insult God.
There are those who follow my words.
There are those who are worried about me because of what I say.
There are those who died in front of my eyes.
There are those who killed and got away with it.
There are those who govern unjustly because they belong to the elite.
There are those who govern unjustly and their friends have been oppressed in the media.
There are those who gain a billion and can’t give away one Dirham.
There are those who make one Dirham that gives them a headache.
There are those steal public funds and they sound like beggars.
There is the journalist who writes in ' Telquel' and was arrested. (Telquel is a progressive Moroccan magazine that has been struggling against censorship laws in Morocco)
Brother journalist, we are with you.
Refrain: Fearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
There are those who are afraid of a cop.
There are those who are afraid of the municipality.
There are those who shake in front of them.
There are those who curse God.
There are those who understand their circumstances.
There are those who feel their concerns.
There is the taxi driver who smokes cigar in front of them.
There are those who were arrested.
There are those whose minds are clean and those whose minds are dirty.
There are those like me, holding on to a microphone.
All young men don’t vote on the day of elections.
Everyone steals their money. Everyone steals our money.
And gossip is circulating around.
Someone has slaughtered a bull. (During elections season, rich candidates throw lavish parties and invite those are eligible to vote).
Someone has slaughtered a cow.
What about those who have slaughtered us???????? Ohhhhh ohhhhh this year there is no money to create more jobs.
Ohhhhh ohhhhh you have stolen the money of this country.
Refrain:
Take my first finger, the second too, the third is up and you know where the fourth is.
If we follow what they say, they are going to close our mouths.
They are going to close your mouths.
Development, development, human development...half of the wealth is for you and the other half is for me.
Underground hip-hop until death.
I love my country.
Are you ashamed of sharing wealth and power?
I don’t want you to be afraid since you have done nothing wrong.
Fear has been planted within us by our grandfathers and it grows up within us.
We must stop being afraid.
We have to stop being slaves of money.
I’m a Moroccan with hot blood in my veins.
I’m ready to kill all those who steal our money.
Refrain:
2006 my brother, the sun goes down...goes down in death. We don’t need those who don’t wish good for us.
Hey! brother, a real Moroccan is with you.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Press TV
I wonder if one can disown the Left of one’s own country?…uh, but wait a second, I am an American and there is no Left from which to disown myself. Ouch.
You may be wondering if decades ago they were killed off and imprisoned and tortured as they were in Morocco, Argentina, Indonesia…hmm…not exactly. Months ago, at around the time of the US presidential elections, I tried to explain to a Moroccan friend why the elections were an extravaganza, a spectacular show, with Obama a mere character of the showmasters. And he asked me, “But where is the Left?” I stumbled, in Arabic and in dismay. Ah, well, you see, uh, there really isn’t a democratic system and people have two options and not really and the corporate media is dominant and people want to believe their nation isn’t racist and there is trauma and demonization of Bush and, well, uh…
And for a moment I felt so alone.
When we found Press TV on our tely, I was intrigued. Another picking from the measly English news channels BBC, Aljazeera, CNN. When my mind is strained from trying to comprehend OTV and Mehwar and other 3mmeya-based channels, I turn to see what is being fed that day in the mainstream. Moving on quickly enough I then stop on Press TV.
One of the first programs I watched on Press TV was a brilliant documentary on peasants struggling against landlords and for land reform in the Philippines. I later found there are programs run by George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley and Tariq Ramadan, all personalities with whom I am familiar.
I was even more intrigued when we discovered that the channel was Iranian and funded by the Iranian government. And even more intriguing that it is mired in controversy! Press TV has been criticized for being anti-semitic, biased, a handler for the Iranian government. The list goes on.
And quickly enough I have grown bored. Maybe that is because when I turn to watch it more often than not I happen to turn to the program “The American Dream” (by timing not interest, of course). And the Americans on this program and most of the other news/social commentary programs I have seen seem to be, well, if not straight from the mainstream, then the non-left Left.
To illustrate this point, a week or so ago the show was devoted to the current US imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The discussion being devoted mostly to the military logistics of the war. One of the guest call-ins, a publisher, presented herself as a peace activist, against both wars, and said with exacerbation something like, “The Afghanistan War is going to be Obama’s Vietnam. And that is really sad for Obama.”
Huh, say it again? You are sad about the war for Obama’s sake? How about being outraged about a war that has killed thousands, has disrupted the lives of thousands, disturbed thousands of villages, violently carved out an eco-landscape, destabilized a region – and will continue to do so?
About a week ago on another program based in Beirut (perhaps “Middle East Today”), the program was devoted to Palestine-Israel under the Obama administration and the guest speaker was an American journalist based in Beirut. The guest speaker acknowledged that any improvement in relations, any steps toward a two-state solution, look bleak. The Israeli government under Netanyahu is not going to make the concessions it needs to. The Press TV correspondent asks him about the Obama Administration. The American journalist responds that the administration perhaps made a mistake by focusing on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as this issue is not that important to Israelis. (And on and on.) But really given how much Obama has on his hands, he is doing what he can. You know, he really has his hands full –
yeah, and we know of what.
You may be wondering if decades ago they were killed off and imprisoned and tortured as they were in Morocco, Argentina, Indonesia…hmm…not exactly. Months ago, at around the time of the US presidential elections, I tried to explain to a Moroccan friend why the elections were an extravaganza, a spectacular show, with Obama a mere character of the showmasters. And he asked me, “But where is the Left?” I stumbled, in Arabic and in dismay. Ah, well, you see, uh, there really isn’t a democratic system and people have two options and not really and the corporate media is dominant and people want to believe their nation isn’t racist and there is trauma and demonization of Bush and, well, uh…
And for a moment I felt so alone.
When we found Press TV on our tely, I was intrigued. Another picking from the measly English news channels BBC, Aljazeera, CNN. When my mind is strained from trying to comprehend OTV and Mehwar and other 3mmeya-based channels, I turn to see what is being fed that day in the mainstream. Moving on quickly enough I then stop on Press TV.
One of the first programs I watched on Press TV was a brilliant documentary on peasants struggling against landlords and for land reform in the Philippines. I later found there are programs run by George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley and Tariq Ramadan, all personalities with whom I am familiar.
I was even more intrigued when we discovered that the channel was Iranian and funded by the Iranian government. And even more intriguing that it is mired in controversy! Press TV has been criticized for being anti-semitic, biased, a handler for the Iranian government. The list goes on.
And quickly enough I have grown bored. Maybe that is because when I turn to watch it more often than not I happen to turn to the program “The American Dream” (by timing not interest, of course). And the Americans on this program and most of the other news/social commentary programs I have seen seem to be, well, if not straight from the mainstream, then the non-left Left.
To illustrate this point, a week or so ago the show was devoted to the current US imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The discussion being devoted mostly to the military logistics of the war. One of the guest call-ins, a publisher, presented herself as a peace activist, against both wars, and said with exacerbation something like, “The Afghanistan War is going to be Obama’s Vietnam. And that is really sad for Obama.”
Huh, say it again? You are sad about the war for Obama’s sake? How about being outraged about a war that has killed thousands, has disrupted the lives of thousands, disturbed thousands of villages, violently carved out an eco-landscape, destabilized a region – and will continue to do so?
About a week ago on another program based in Beirut (perhaps “Middle East Today”), the program was devoted to Palestine-Israel under the Obama administration and the guest speaker was an American journalist based in Beirut. The guest speaker acknowledged that any improvement in relations, any steps toward a two-state solution, look bleak. The Israeli government under Netanyahu is not going to make the concessions it needs to. The Press TV correspondent asks him about the Obama Administration. The American journalist responds that the administration perhaps made a mistake by focusing on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as this issue is not that important to Israelis. (And on and on.) But really given how much Obama has on his hands, he is doing what he can. You know, he really has his hands full –
yeah, and we know of what.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Hope, denial and collective amnesia
Perhaps this is an outdated scandal by now. It has been a month since the heart of the FIFA Confederations Cup and in the midst of that drama brewed a scandal: Egypt’s football team players, a group of lady prostitutes and thousands of stolen dollars. At a press conference the morning after the thunderous victory of Egypt over Italy Egyptian team players were questioned about a South African police report that was purportedly filed by the Egyptian players themselves, claiming that a group of prostitutes stole thousands of dollars from their rooms the night before. No comments were made.
The next day, following a sorry loss to the US, the Egyptian press got hold of the story and were fuming. Soon enough the news spread throughout Egypt. The Egyptian coach and team players of course denied the accusations that they were partying all night in the midst of the tournament. They are good Muslims after all.
Too bad for the Egyptian team that that same night the Brazilian players had also been robbed by a group of prostitutes and had filed a complaint with the South African police. For a second I delighted in the fact that women had stolen the spotlight, if only briefly, in the midst of this football mania, this spectacular show of manly manliness. But then again, I quickly realized, the women had entered the stage through the “back door”, ei ah la.
When I talked to a group of Egyptian friends about this, they were a bit frustrated with the journalists who were making very loud noise about it. Plus, it couldn’t be true. Not likely the Egyptian team would be so stupid as to be partying right before an important match in the semi-finals. If only it were unbelievable for those with some public authority, bestowed with public trust – and funded (at least partly) by the public, – to be acting irresponsibly!
This scandal of decadence (did anyone ask why they would be holding thousands of dollars in their hotel rooms, anyway?!) and disregard for the public (it is difficult to claim national football teams as ‘national’, anyway) seemed so fitting in this age of massive private wealth accumulation and an elite global class gone mad. At least for me as an American this scandal – and the simultaneous societal outrage and denial it provoked – reminds me of the hope of Obama mania. And the overwhelming collective amnesia built around it.
Obama did not have much of a background at the federal level to substantiate his proclamations during the presidential election campaign, but surely he had an enduring presence and eloquent speech to back them up (cough...). Well, in fact, more than that: Obama’s minimal record in the US Senate actually sufficiently refuted his campaign promises. I will give two simple examples.
There was hope that Obama and his administration really would take an anti-war stance. Obama boldly declared he was against the war in Iraq, and there was a collective will to believe this declaration, even though he was not even in the Senate when the initial US attack on Iraq was launched. Further, one would not have to look very far to confirm that during his short term in the Senate he actually did vote for the continuation of the occupation as he consistently approved the budget for military appropriations. And now there is still hope that the Obama administration’s escalation of war in Afghanistan will lead to a quick resolution (on US terms, of course) and that the US military really will leave Iraq soon. Really, the Obama administration must be outmaneuvered by the Pentagon guys!
On the campaign trail Obama took a hard stance against the public-private revolving door: There will be no lobbyists in my administration, he declared! This was a particularly outrageous promise in that at that very moment he was receiving millions of dollars worth of contributions from Wall Street firms. And again, just a couple years before, in 2005 while in the Senate, in one of the few votes against his fellow Democrats (Clinton, Kerry and the gang) Obama voted in favor of the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, under which “citizens are denied the right to use their own state courts to bring class actions against corporations that violate these state wage and hour and state civil rights laws, even where that corporation has hundreds of employees in that state..” (from Pam Martens’s 2008 ZNet article on “Obama’s Money Cartel”).
And of course months into the Obama administration and after the appointment of cabinet and department heads, the public-private revolving door keeps revolving. As Matt Taibbi points out in his new Rolling Stone article “The Great American Bubble Machine,” about the entrenchment of Goldman Sachs in the US political and economic infrastructure, a month into office Obama appointed Mark Paterson as number two in the Treasury, who had been a year earlier one of the head Goldman Sachs lobbyists. The list of financial heads in key government posts is long, as is the history of the ‘revolving door’. (Full access to Taibbi's article is available on Rolling Stone's website. You can also check out a series of interviews of Taibbi on the BreakRoom through youtube. And of course Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine documents this history that dates back long before the Bush administration.)
And the hope in the Obama administration seems to continue with all the declarations of the “hard road” ahead for Obama, his need to rethink, he needing to be pushed, his smarts.
Grasping for reasons to hope. And denial, plain and simple. Just about any kind of change would have passed through the collective amnesia in the US that Bush did not act alone. Not even did his administration act alone. And surely the blatant imperial stances and policies of the fear-ridden Bush years were not such a departure from the history of US imperialism.
Continued denial will only perpetuate elite excesses, gross injustices and bad policies. Nor will growing cynicism help. But surely what can help is a hard look and open/public confrontation like the journalists and commentators gave here by not letting the football team just get away with it. And like all of us who try to remain vigilant and speak truth to power.
The next day, following a sorry loss to the US, the Egyptian press got hold of the story and were fuming. Soon enough the news spread throughout Egypt. The Egyptian coach and team players of course denied the accusations that they were partying all night in the midst of the tournament. They are good Muslims after all.
Too bad for the Egyptian team that that same night the Brazilian players had also been robbed by a group of prostitutes and had filed a complaint with the South African police. For a second I delighted in the fact that women had stolen the spotlight, if only briefly, in the midst of this football mania, this spectacular show of manly manliness. But then again, I quickly realized, the women had entered the stage through the “back door”, ei ah la.
When I talked to a group of Egyptian friends about this, they were a bit frustrated with the journalists who were making very loud noise about it. Plus, it couldn’t be true. Not likely the Egyptian team would be so stupid as to be partying right before an important match in the semi-finals. If only it were unbelievable for those with some public authority, bestowed with public trust – and funded (at least partly) by the public, – to be acting irresponsibly!
This scandal of decadence (did anyone ask why they would be holding thousands of dollars in their hotel rooms, anyway?!) and disregard for the public (it is difficult to claim national football teams as ‘national’, anyway) seemed so fitting in this age of massive private wealth accumulation and an elite global class gone mad. At least for me as an American this scandal – and the simultaneous societal outrage and denial it provoked – reminds me of the hope of Obama mania. And the overwhelming collective amnesia built around it.
Obama did not have much of a background at the federal level to substantiate his proclamations during the presidential election campaign, but surely he had an enduring presence and eloquent speech to back them up (cough...). Well, in fact, more than that: Obama’s minimal record in the US Senate actually sufficiently refuted his campaign promises. I will give two simple examples.
There was hope that Obama and his administration really would take an anti-war stance. Obama boldly declared he was against the war in Iraq, and there was a collective will to believe this declaration, even though he was not even in the Senate when the initial US attack on Iraq was launched. Further, one would not have to look very far to confirm that during his short term in the Senate he actually did vote for the continuation of the occupation as he consistently approved the budget for military appropriations. And now there is still hope that the Obama administration’s escalation of war in Afghanistan will lead to a quick resolution (on US terms, of course) and that the US military really will leave Iraq soon. Really, the Obama administration must be outmaneuvered by the Pentagon guys!
On the campaign trail Obama took a hard stance against the public-private revolving door: There will be no lobbyists in my administration, he declared! This was a particularly outrageous promise in that at that very moment he was receiving millions of dollars worth of contributions from Wall Street firms. And again, just a couple years before, in 2005 while in the Senate, in one of the few votes against his fellow Democrats (Clinton, Kerry and the gang) Obama voted in favor of the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, under which “citizens are denied the right to use their own state courts to bring class actions against corporations that violate these state wage and hour and state civil rights laws, even where that corporation has hundreds of employees in that state..” (from Pam Martens’s 2008 ZNet article on “Obama’s Money Cartel”).
And of course months into the Obama administration and after the appointment of cabinet and department heads, the public-private revolving door keeps revolving. As Matt Taibbi points out in his new Rolling Stone article “The Great American Bubble Machine,” about the entrenchment of Goldman Sachs in the US political and economic infrastructure, a month into office Obama appointed Mark Paterson as number two in the Treasury, who had been a year earlier one of the head Goldman Sachs lobbyists. The list of financial heads in key government posts is long, as is the history of the ‘revolving door’. (Full access to Taibbi's article is available on Rolling Stone's website. You can also check out a series of interviews of Taibbi on the BreakRoom through youtube. And of course Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine documents this history that dates back long before the Bush administration.)
And the hope in the Obama administration seems to continue with all the declarations of the “hard road” ahead for Obama, his need to rethink, he needing to be pushed, his smarts.
Grasping for reasons to hope. And denial, plain and simple. Just about any kind of change would have passed through the collective amnesia in the US that Bush did not act alone. Not even did his administration act alone. And surely the blatant imperial stances and policies of the fear-ridden Bush years were not such a departure from the history of US imperialism.
Continued denial will only perpetuate elite excesses, gross injustices and bad policies. Nor will growing cynicism help. But surely what can help is a hard look and open/public confrontation like the journalists and commentators gave here by not letting the football team just get away with it. And like all of us who try to remain vigilant and speak truth to power.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Footballing the Gods
These past couple weeks have been at face a religious firestorm. This past week riots and ongoing violence has erupted in China between the minority Muslim Uighur community and the state security forces, leaving more than 150 dead (according to latest reports). A week before last a Muslim woman was stabbed to death in a hate-inspired attack in Germany.
This violence and the slew of similar violent incidents against religious-ethnic minorities and between religious-ethnic groups have marked this era with a steady stream of blood and tears. And oddly what compels me to write this entry is that this particular outburst in violence has occurred at an apex in the season of football (aka "soccer" for the American reader) – and a quite "religious" season at that. The FIFA Confederations Cup 2009 in South Africa just ended and the world of football is in the throes of trials for the cups of nations – the continents cups, the World Cup 2010.
Throughout the Confederations Cup players were seen entering and leaving the field while signing the cross in prayer. After scoring a goal the Egyptian members bowed down with their foreheads to the field, as if in prayer. When Brazil won the Final, the 'most expensive' of all footballers in the world – Kaka – threw off his jersey to reveal a "I belong to Jesus" undershirt. Several of his teammates displayed their "I love Jesus" undershirts. And when the Brazilian team members huddled together to take the cup, the player positioned to take it and raise it above, strapped his "I love Jesus" shirt to his waist for the final picture of victory – and for the entire world to see.
But surely I can not be suggesting that the religious paraphernalia and general goodwill on the football field has anything to do with the killing and persecution of a religious-ethnic minority group in China?! The fact that such violence immediately followed the Confederations Cup must be coincidental!
Well, what happened during the Confederations Cup has drawn some attention. Some. And the debate generated generally concerns whether team members should make evident their religions. Denmark Football Federation Secretary-General Jim Stjerne Hansen has apparently pointed out that such religious displays violate FIFA's rules of engagement.
It would be a good course of action to enforce the rules and bar such religious ceremonies and paraphernalia, but by limiting the debate to an issue of religious expression (and its limits in public spaces) we fail to see that such open religiosity on the football field is not merely a matter of displaying one's identity or even taking an opportunity to propagate one's beliefs. Rather, it is testament to the predominance of a particular type of religiosity. Religions as organizations of membership and reward. If you belong to Jesus too, you could be like Kaka. And if you cant be like Kaka, you are at least still a winner because Kaka, like you, is on the side of God. Those who love Jesus turn out on top.
The intimacy between religion and sport reflects the tide of us-versus-them religiosity. Of course during the Confederations Cup it was not just footballers sporting their religion, but fans were shown praying, pleading, with their gods to be on the side of their team. Here in Egypt talk of football is very wrapped up in the will of Allah. When Egypt won a match against Italy, the streets of Cairo were lit with excitement and supporters were interviewed by television reporters praising Allah for the victory. The victory against the football giant Italy was sure evidence that God is on their side.
And what if your team loses? Is God no longer on your side? One of the great Egyptian intellectuals of the 20th century, Farag Foda, bemoaned the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt in the 1980s and once lamented the raising of the Quran (instead of the trophy) by a basketball captain and argued that the Quran is not a flag or banner to be waved. Foda was later assassinated for his harsh criticism of rising fundamentalism.
Since Farag Foda's death there has not been a public intellectual as critical of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt. A reason is that not only has the rise of fundamentalism been on a steady upward trajectory since his time, but in many ways it has become mainstreamed into religious discourse. In a recent article on "The rotten-state of Egypt," Robert Fisk sharply criticizes the new religious façade (of appearances determining one's religious devotion) and its implications in deep societal corruption. What was once a rising trend Farag Foda commented on has now become the main face of religiosity in Egypt.
Religiosities of personal commitment, devotion, contemplation, love and compassion, commitment to justice are being sufficiently overwhelmed by a type of religiosity that is exclusionary, self-congratulatory and competitive. And indeed what other religious trends might we expect in such a competitive world – and one between very unequal players? Perhaps the world of football is one of the few competitive realms in which Egypt can beat Italy, Brazil can be the champion of the world and the little ones have a shot to go to the World Cup. Yet again, commercialization of football as of life has led to very definite and often predictable winners and losers. If God is on your side, it doesn’t matter how much you lose.
This violence and the slew of similar violent incidents against religious-ethnic minorities and between religious-ethnic groups have marked this era with a steady stream of blood and tears. And oddly what compels me to write this entry is that this particular outburst in violence has occurred at an apex in the season of football (aka "soccer" for the American reader) – and a quite "religious" season at that. The FIFA Confederations Cup 2009 in South Africa just ended and the world of football is in the throes of trials for the cups of nations – the continents cups, the World Cup 2010.
Throughout the Confederations Cup players were seen entering and leaving the field while signing the cross in prayer. After scoring a goal the Egyptian members bowed down with their foreheads to the field, as if in prayer. When Brazil won the Final, the 'most expensive' of all footballers in the world – Kaka – threw off his jersey to reveal a "I belong to Jesus" undershirt. Several of his teammates displayed their "I love Jesus" undershirts. And when the Brazilian team members huddled together to take the cup, the player positioned to take it and raise it above, strapped his "I love Jesus" shirt to his waist for the final picture of victory – and for the entire world to see.
But surely I can not be suggesting that the religious paraphernalia and general goodwill on the football field has anything to do with the killing and persecution of a religious-ethnic minority group in China?! The fact that such violence immediately followed the Confederations Cup must be coincidental!
Well, what happened during the Confederations Cup has drawn some attention. Some. And the debate generated generally concerns whether team members should make evident their religions. Denmark Football Federation Secretary-General Jim Stjerne Hansen has apparently pointed out that such religious displays violate FIFA's rules of engagement.
It would be a good course of action to enforce the rules and bar such religious ceremonies and paraphernalia, but by limiting the debate to an issue of religious expression (and its limits in public spaces) we fail to see that such open religiosity on the football field is not merely a matter of displaying one's identity or even taking an opportunity to propagate one's beliefs. Rather, it is testament to the predominance of a particular type of religiosity. Religions as organizations of membership and reward. If you belong to Jesus too, you could be like Kaka. And if you cant be like Kaka, you are at least still a winner because Kaka, like you, is on the side of God. Those who love Jesus turn out on top.
The intimacy between religion and sport reflects the tide of us-versus-them religiosity. Of course during the Confederations Cup it was not just footballers sporting their religion, but fans were shown praying, pleading, with their gods to be on the side of their team. Here in Egypt talk of football is very wrapped up in the will of Allah. When Egypt won a match against Italy, the streets of Cairo were lit with excitement and supporters were interviewed by television reporters praising Allah for the victory. The victory against the football giant Italy was sure evidence that God is on their side.
And what if your team loses? Is God no longer on your side? One of the great Egyptian intellectuals of the 20th century, Farag Foda, bemoaned the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt in the 1980s and once lamented the raising of the Quran (instead of the trophy) by a basketball captain and argued that the Quran is not a flag or banner to be waved. Foda was later assassinated for his harsh criticism of rising fundamentalism.
Since Farag Foda's death there has not been a public intellectual as critical of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt. A reason is that not only has the rise of fundamentalism been on a steady upward trajectory since his time, but in many ways it has become mainstreamed into religious discourse. In a recent article on "The rotten-state of Egypt," Robert Fisk sharply criticizes the new religious façade (of appearances determining one's religious devotion) and its implications in deep societal corruption. What was once a rising trend Farag Foda commented on has now become the main face of religiosity in Egypt.
Religiosities of personal commitment, devotion, contemplation, love and compassion, commitment to justice are being sufficiently overwhelmed by a type of religiosity that is exclusionary, self-congratulatory and competitive. And indeed what other religious trends might we expect in such a competitive world – and one between very unequal players? Perhaps the world of football is one of the few competitive realms in which Egypt can beat Italy, Brazil can be the champion of the world and the little ones have a shot to go to the World Cup. Yet again, commercialization of football as of life has led to very definite and often predictable winners and losers. If God is on your side, it doesn’t matter how much you lose.
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